Both Wall Street and Main Street are appauled about yesterday's Op-Ed piece by then little known Goldmanite Greg Smith. For those of you living under a rock, Mr. Smith shockingly suggested that Goldman did not have their clients' best interst at heart and that Goldman looked to profit at the expense of their clients. Mr. Smith states that "not one single minute is spent helping clients. It's purely about how we can make the most money off of them."
Could that really be true? You mean to tell me in today's world that someone selling a product may or may not believe in that particular product? And that product could not only not help but also hurt the intended target? And of all places on Wall Street? At Goldman Sachs?
I worked at a hedge fund for seven years and I never relied on help from a salesman. We did our own research on the ideas that we generated. If we were pitched an idea from a broker like Goldman then it was our job to do due diligence on that idea. We knew that they never worked for us but were a competitor.
This bring me back to my earler question. Why are we so surprised? As consumers, are we never persudaed to buy something that we do not really need or want? Or sold something that isn't what we expected?
Let us start with good old-fashioned real estate. Take that junior four with river views and call it a small one bedroom with just a sliver of a river but broad views of the alleyway. Does your real estate broker have your best interest at heart? Does the apartment's seller?
What about that Prada shirt you bought for $300.00. the salesperson told you that you looked great but when you got home you thoguht you looked fat? It isn't the mirror.
The strawberries you bought on tuesday that the guy at the fruit stand swore would be good until Friday went rotten Tuesday night. But he told me they would last until Friday? Maybe he was wrong. Nope.
He knew they would rot overnight. Just like Goldman knew that the Abacus deal would go rotten (it would take a week or so longer than the strawberries). This is simply a side effect of capitalist greed. Buyers beware. HF93 always was.
